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Of course Obama confuses the two. In case you haven’t heard, Obama was caught inserting his foot in his mouth with an open mic in South Korea. Via ABC news, the gaffe (except it’s more than that) heard round the world:

President Obama: On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this, this can be solved but it’s important for him to give me space.
President Medvedev: Yeah, I understand. I understand your message about space. Space for you…
President Obama: This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility.
President Medvedev: I understand. I will transmit this information to Vladimir.

The media reports this as if it were a gaffe–just like they did the last time Obama’s mic was on and he trashed Israel PM Benjamin Netanyahu to French President Nicholas Sarkozy. But it’s not a gaffe. Ed Morrissey:

So far, the tepid coverage from National Journal and the Washington Post suggests that the media doesn’t consider a request to another nation to pipe down so an American President can win a second term and deliver more favorable policy to a potential antagonist more than a “gaffe.”

Selling out our national security and that of our allies isn’t a gaffe. The fallout from this should reverberate until the election. A President who tells an enemy–yes, Virginia, the Russians are not our friends–just hold on a bit, and I’ll keep the favors flowing needs not be President for that reason alone. As if there aren’t myriad others to ditch the O.

Predictably, our friends are now scared to death. Bryan Preston on this “smart” diplomacy we were promised:

Obama’s Republican rivals aren’t the only ones alarmed by his hot mic suggestion that missile defense — implicitly, defending Eastern Europe from Russia — could be softened after his re-election. The headline in the largest Polish tabloid, Fakt: “Were they trading Poland? Puzzling Obama talk with Medvedev about the missile shield.”

Photo of the headline at the link. Poland has no reason to trust this president. Most of our longstanding allies have in fact been treated shabbily by the same man who was caught conspiring with the head of Russians’ corrupt regime.

Beyond the normal implications of Obama’s comments–chiefly that he’s willing to compromise our national security and that of our allies in order to reduce the global nuclear arsenal (ha, as if the Russians would truthfully comply)–the suggestion that he would seek to “accomplish” things in a second term voters would never approve galls me. Preston delves deeper:

And then, there is the anti-democratic aspect to the president’s comments. What plans are he formulating, that make his “last election” relevant? What is he planning to do that, if the American people were aware of it, would make him unelectable? That is what he is suggesting to the Russian leader — that this final election for him creates “flexibility” on policy that he does not have now.

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[…] that they would never let a crisis go to waste. He himself asked the Russian dictator regime to give him some space until after the November election so that he could cave on missile defense. Every […]